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What Is The Function of Shear Keys in The Design of Retaining Walls?

Shear keys increase the sliding resistance of retaining walls. They work by increasing the passive resistance developed by the height of the shear keys, which exceeds the increase in active pressure. Shear keys also change the failure surface from the wall base to within the foundation soil. This allows the full friction angle of the soil to be mobilized rather than just 0.8 times the friction angle, further enhancing the sliding resistance of the retaining wall.

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801 views1 page

What Is The Function of Shear Keys in The Design of Retaining Walls?

Shear keys increase the sliding resistance of retaining walls. They work by increasing the passive resistance developed by the height of the shear keys, which exceeds the increase in active pressure. Shear keys also change the failure surface from the wall base to within the foundation soil. This allows the full friction angle of the soil to be mobilized rather than just 0.8 times the friction angle, further enhancing the sliding resistance of the retaining wall.

Uploaded by

Ajit Kumar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

What is the function of shear keys in the design of

retaining walls?
engineeringcivil.com/what-is-the-function-of-shear-keys-in-the-design-of-retaining-walls.html

In determining the external stability of retaining walls, failure modes like bearing failure,
sliding and overturning are normally considered in design. In considering the criterion of
sliding, the sliding resistance of retaining walls is derived from the base friction between
the wall base and the foundation soils. To increase the sliding resistance of retaining
walls, other than providing a large self-weight or a large retained soil mass, shear keys
are to be installed at the wall base. The principle of shear keys is as follows:

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The main purpose of installation of shear keys is to increase the extra passive resistance
developed by the height of shear keys. However, active pressure developed by shear
keys also increases simultaneously. The success of shear keys lies in the fact that the
increase of passive pressure exceeds the increase in active pressure, resulting in a net
improvement of sliding resistance.
On the other hand, friction between the wall base and the foundation soils is normally
about a fraction of the angle of internal resistance (i.e. about 0.8p ) where p is the angle
of internal friction of foundation soil. When a shear key is installed at the base of the
retaining wall, the failure surface is changed from the wall base/soil horizontal plane to a
plane within foundation soil. Therefore, the friction angle mobilized in this case is p
instead of 0.8p in the previous case and the sliding resistance can be enhanced.

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This question is taken from book named – A Self Learning Manual – Mastering Different Fields
of Civil Engineering Works (VC-Q-A-Method) by Vincent T. H. CHU.

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